Abstract
The radioactivity of uranium was discovered in 1896 by Henri Becquerel who, starting from a wrong idea, progressively realized what he was observing, regularly informing the French Academy of Sciences of the progress he was doing. In the next years, it was found that thorium was radioactive too, and two new radioactive elements, polonium and radium, were discovered by Pierre and Marie Curie, while a third one, actinium, was identified by Andre Debierne. The study of the penetrating power and of the effect of electric and magnetic fields allowed scientists to demonstrate the complexity of nuclear radiation with its three components alpha, beta, gamma. The Comptes rendus de l'Academie des sciences allow the reader to see how difficult it was to understand the nature of radioactivity, which was essentially elucidated by Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy. (c) 2017 Academie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.
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